Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2018, Agricultural and Extension Education

More than half of the world today lives in urban areas. By 2050, this percentage is expected to reach 66 percent. As the shift toward urbanization occurs, individuals begin to participate in urban livestock production to supplement their diets with animal protein. Urban livestock production presents a myriad of challenges, including zoonotic disease and risk of bodily harm. An exploratory study, utilizing a concurrent triangulation mixed methods approach, was designed to identify management practices that impact overall safety and health of livestock producers in Managua, Nicaragua. Through quantitative surveys, qualitative interviews, and researcher observations, the data were collected and analyzed in an 18-month U.S. Borlaug Fellowship in Global Food Security, sponsored by USAID. Immersed in the culture, the researcher interacted with 100 urban and peri-urban livestock owners. Guided by the Theory of Planned Behavior, the study protocol used personal attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control as a structure for identifying themes within urban and peri-urban livestock production. The themes related to producers' attitudes were safety, diseases and parasites, cleanliness, and enjoyment. Themes related to subjective norms were experts, family, other livestock producers, and neighbors. Perceived behavioral control themes were authority, knowledge, access, and income. Results found urban livestock producers think first of the safety and health of the animals, then of their family, a strong motivator. Producers would like to perform safe and healthy livestock handling procedures, but do not have the knowledge to improve safety and health. Income is also a limiting factor. Intention to perform safe and healthy livestock handling procedures is primarily limited by the producer's perceived control combined with actual control. Through researcher interaction during Phase 1 the livestock producers expressed interest in learning more about (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Shelly Dee Jepsen (Advisor); Mary Rodriguez (Committee Member) Subjects: Agricultural Education; Agriculture; Animal Sciences

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, Plant Pathology

Plant pathologists must engage with diverse stakeholders and adopt multidisciplinary approaches to develop practical solutions to plant health problems. Two distinct projects were undertaken in this dissertation research, both requiring participatory and multidisciplinary approaches to address research objectives. The overarching objective of the first research project was to develop methods to improve soil and plant health on smallholder tomato farms in the Morogoro Region of Tanzania. Tomato is the main vegetable cash crop grown by smallholder farmers in this region and its production is constrained by plant diseases, limited access to improved tomato varieties, and poor soil health. Disease surveys were conducted in five villages to determine the most prevalent tomato diseases during both the wet and dry production seasons. The most commonly occurring foliar diseases in both seasons were early blight, bacterial spot/speck, viral diseases, and Septoria leaf spot. Ethnophytopathological activities were conducted to gather local disease knowledge in order to improve farmer and researcher communication and elucidate how farmers perceive key diseases. Mother and baby trials were conducted as a participatory crop improvement approach to introduce and evaluate tomato varieties in three villages. Mother trials were conducted in seven environments, and variance partitioning revealed significant genetic effects for all traits measured. Results from baby trials indicated that introduced varieties were locally acceptable to farmers, except for traits related to marketability. A participatory approach was used to improve soil health monitoring by participating farmers. Baseline soil characteristics were gathered from fifty tomato fields in the region, local soil knowledge was elicited from farmers and used to develop a soil health card, and farmers were trained on the use of a low cost soil test kit. Outcome Mapping was used to evaluate participation in mother and baby trials (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sally Miller (Advisor); Pierce Paul (Committee Member); David Francis (Committee Member); Steven Culman (Committee Member) Subjects: Plant Pathology